[Plugin: Amazon Express] Sneaky non-free plugin

I don’t mind paying for a really nice plugin that I really need or donating to a developer who maintains a plugin I’ve found useful, but the developer of this plugin went about trying to get “donations” or charging for his plugin in what I think is a rather sneaky way.

There’s no indication anywhere in the plugin description that this is not a free plugin (as most (all?) plugins on this site are free). What you find when you install it is a message telling you that you need to go to the settings page to set it up. Then you notice the developer’s own Amazon associate id is set as the default. Not cool. It should be blank.

When you click on the “change” link, suddenly you’re prompted to make a paypal “donation” before you can change the associate id to your own via the Settings page. In order to avoid being completely sleazy, the developer informs you that you can hack the code in order to change the associate id if you don’t want to pay up. So you can technically get the plugin for free, but the developer deliberately makes it a pain to do so. He’s not charging much for the user-friendly version of his plugin, only $5 (at least until the next update; who’s to say an update won’t reset the associate id back to his own, prompting another payment?). But it’s the principle of the thing. He gives no warning about all this at all.

Does it violate WordPress plugin repository rules? I don’t know

A word of advice to the developer: this tactic is likely to destroy any goodwill right off the bat and disincline anyone to donate to you to aid in the further development of the plugin.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/amazon-express/